+28.  Reproduction of Images.+—­If we were asked to tell about an accident which we had seen, we could recall the various incidents in the order of their occurrence.  If the accident had occurred recently, or had made a vivid impression upon us, we could easily form mental images of each scene.  If we had only read a description of the accident, it would be more difficult to recall the image; because that which we gain through language is less vitally a part of ourselves than is that which comes to us through experience.

When called upon to reproduce the images suggested to us by language, our memory is apt to concern itself with the words that suggested the image, and our expression is hampered rather than aided by this remembrance.  The author has made, or should have made, the best possible selection of words and phrases.  If we repeat his language, we have but memory drill or copy work; and if we do not, we are limited to such second-class language as we may be able to find.

Word memory has its uses, but it is less valuable than image memory.  It is necessary to distinguish carefully between the images that a writer presents and the words that he uses.  If a botany lesson should consist of a description of fifteen different leaves, a pupil deficient in image memory will attempt to memorize the language of the book.  A better-trained pupil, on meeting such a term as serrated, will ask himself:  “Have I ever seen such a leaf?  Can I form an image of it?” If so, his only task will be to give the new name, serrated, to the idea that he already has.  In a similar way he will form images for each of the fifteen leaves described in the lesson.  The language of the book may help him form these images, but he will make no attempt to commit the language to memory.  With him, “getting the lesson” means forming images and naming them, and reciting the lesson will be but talking about an image that he has clearly in mind.  Try this in your own lessons.

If we are called upon to reproduce the incidents and scenes of some story that has been read to us, our success will depend upon the clearness of the images that we have formed.  Our efforts should be directed to making the images as definite and vivid as possible, and our memory will be concerned with the recalling of these images in their proper order, and not with the language that first caused them to appear.

EXERCISES

1.  Report orally some interesting incident taken from a book which you have recently read.  Do not reread the story.  Use such language as will cause the class to form clear mental images.

2.  Report orally upon some chapter selected from Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans or Scott’s Ivanhoe.

3.  Read a portion of Scott’s Lady of the Lake, and report orally what happened.

4.  Report orally some incident that you have read about in a magazine.  Select one that caused you to form images, and tell it so that the hearers will form like images.